Delightful DAC Week :~)

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For me, Yggy break-in was crazy. Performance was "good" for about 300 hrs (150ish playing music). I've "somewhat" believed in break-in before, but in the past it's been "yeah, I think I hear a difference now". In this case, however, a switch was flipped, taking me instantly to truth of timbre in real space. Never before did a component say "OK, now I'm ready, let's listen to music". Which I am now doing, re-listening to everything.

 

 

300 hr. break-in=12.5 days. Rather schiity return policy

is 15 days w/5% restock + shipping. Definite potential

for some excitement.

 

pb-

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I am surprised that Schiit, who style themselves as no-nonsense, recommend so much burn-in. I would have thought that DAC clocks are fully stable after ~24 hours, so that one day should be enough to get stable sound from the DAC.

 

Boris, the answer is involved and requires a passing

knowledge of Norse mythology and military weapon

guidance systems. ha ha

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My time is limited, trying to get my Schiit together for RMAF, but I cannot resist some quick comments to several of the above posts. Lots of taps permit a much higher slope in the transition band performance, a higher frequency response before the transition band begins (in our case .98 of nyquist), and much more attenuation in the stopband. The filter indeed rings, as all finite impulse response filters do., and it does indeed alias at 700 and something Khz, which is easy to filter in the analog domain without screwing up the sound. There is nothing faith-based about this filter, nor any exemptions from sampling theory. A frequency and time domain optimized filter is NOT mutually exclusive. The key word is optimized; not perfected. The filter has been tested by a non-partisan user here:

 

 

yggdrasil technical measurements

 

 

Those users with good time domain response speakers are well equipped to hear spatial cues should be impressed if imaging is a priority for them. Such cues are far more difficult to hear on headphone systems, but should be audible with the best phones.

 

 

All Schiit specs are very conservative; I have been doing this a very long time since I built and sold the very first D/A converter back in the 1980's. I have built not just for myself but for many other companies dozens of designs, from multibits at the beginning to ds designs and now back to multibits again. (They sound waaaaaaaaay better!) It took several years to reapply all of my original audio technology to modern industrial/defense/medical D/A converters; at Schiit, I am now migrating the technology downwards into all of our upgradable DACs. If you do not believe me, or think I am some carnival barker with a straw hat and a cane selling nebulous sound as euphones or something, then just do not buy my stuff. There is plenty of other stuff out there. One of my favorite sayings is that God could appear to me and tell me how to build the perfect DAC and there are those out there who would accuse me of false claims or numinous science.

 

 

Schiit audio really is a populist audio company. We want to offer the best value products. It therefore has limited products in its line; simplifying the line makes us more efficient. We try to pack in as much as possible at every price point. Understand, we make DACs from $100 to $2300. Generally, our products are compared to products selling for much more. We do not offer multi-colors or D/A converters with volume controls built-in. The Yggy has high enough output to be used with an external attenuator. So get one if that is what you want. We cannot please everyone.

 

C'mon Mike. Don't be modest. It's well known

in Norse circles what happened that smokey

night in Asgard back-stage at God and the

Sacred Schiits concert......not to mention there

is a 15 day trial period, albeit 5% restock +

ship. Now let's get dem back orders out.....

ha ha............

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Regarding the Yggy, the beginning of the video in this link has some very interesting comments from Bob Katz and Tyll:

 

Big Sound 2015: Biting the Bullet with Bob Katz | InnerFidelity

 

Was the Yggy compared to the Antelope Zodiac

Plat. with the 10M Rubidium Atomic Clock,

$13,045, or w/o the Atomic Clock, $5,500.

Either way great endorsement for the $2,300

Yggy.

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Is it even a fair comparison? The Total DACs are 3 - 15+ times more expensive.

 

The modestly priced Yggy even being

considered in this league is IMPRESSIVE.

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Bow down to the Norse Gods . I have drunk from the Tree of Life , The Mighty Yggdrasil and have eaten its Schiit .

 

It taste good !

 

Get some cheetos and chill. The line

between a rave audio review and a

Pink Flamingos sequel has been

blurred. haha

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What is the sound like?

 

If I may step in: Synthesizing all things Yggy

ever posted, dependent on your room,system

and expectations, it's somewhere between

the best dac you never heard, master of

detail location and room ambience; OR,

clinical and neutered, all about details

ruthlessly sacrificing tonality warmth and

fluiditeeeeee. I too need an informed

relevent opinion, so I have one on order.

 

pb-

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Post #131 was posted in another forum - it inspired the following comment (name changed)

 

Quote:

 

Originally Posted by DS

"I don't believe it. As far as the two pulses, sometimes one perceives clicks as a result of envelopes and not the underlying tones. Human Echoic Memory limitations are an established scientific fact. We can't accurately compare audio, in detail, beyond a few seconds difference. One can characterize but not differentiate accurately."

 

 

 

I post this neither to be contentious nor to start a pissing contest. Also, I am grateful for DS's support for many of our products and low cost, efficient philosophy. I do not believe in a zero sum universe where if someone is right, then someone else has to be wrong. I also must point out, that despite our differences, I learned much from John Koval (referred in the above post #131) and we became lifelong friends as we concentrated on what we had in common rather than what were our differences. Audio can be a great hobby.

 

 

That said, I do not believe but know from experience that I can tell the difference in long term blind listening between dozens of gain-matched pairs of equivalent products. I also know that I have seen several other audiophiles do the same. In all fairness, I have also seen some who could not. In my theatre directing avocation, I have seen auditionees who had wonderful voices but could not hear tones to stay on key. Those who cannot sing, seldom have singing as a hobby, even though they may attend and enjoy live theatre.

 

I am not a tent revivalist. I do not build products that I place my faith in, but what I know to be better. If I subscribed to the above quote, I would either have to be a hypocrite, or would have sincerely wasted a life and career in seeking and building better sounding audio electronics. I love doing what I do and making it available to others. That notion propounded by DS also invalidates a significant percentage of posts, perhaps the majority, on this forum.

 

 

I love theatre. I love music. I love audio, which is the reproduction on music. All of them are based on soft science. Neither is, for example, medicine. If you give infected individuals an antibiotic, such and such a percentage will get better. If you play Mahler for an audience, such and such a percentage will like the music. If you play our flagship DAC, such and such a percentage will like it. On and on.

 

If you listen to reproduced music, abilities vary widely. All preamps I used to build were RIAA accurate to 0.1db (as is the Mani today - unusual then, unusual now). Some can hear that degree of accuracy, others cannot. Some are tone deaf-others are not. Some can hear time domain (spatial) cues in our Multibit models, others cannot. All I can do is do my best to make my products measure and sound as good as I can.

 

Science today is prone to revision as sophistication and experiments proliferate. Until then, I pledge not to tell anyone in general and DS in particular what they can or can not hear.

 

Empiricism is overrated.

 

Yggy makes me WANNA DANCE.